Sarah emails about the Modern Orthodox Los Angeles school:
I get the sense that the conflict between opposing forces (Friedman and the people who are sick of him) is unresolved, and that it will countinue to play out over time in the personnel decisions, i.e. who is let go and who comes in. Will they make good decisions in a conflicted environment? They don’t seem to have done so even before. They have not picked up such great people from other schools, in my opinion, one very negative person in particular who I can’t understand why they would allow themselves to be associated with. Meanwhile, the school is very financially stretched. Not a pretty picture. On a separate note, time will also tell whether they made a mistake in expanding to pre-K through 12. They put themselves in direct competition with the schools that should be their feeders. Will people who opt against Shalhevet for pre-K and elementary come back for high school? They certainly won’t be getting encouragement from the elementary/middle schools. It will be interesting to see how their recruitment goes, because it seems like they have now made themselves dependent upon their success is early education recruiting, which is a competitive area that every school is focused on.
